U.S. Post Office (Yonkers, New York)
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The U.S. Post Office for
Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...
, is located on Main Street downtown, opposite the city's train station. It is a two-story stone building erected in the late 1920s. It is located in the 10702 ZIP Code, but serves the entire city, which has other ZIP codes between 10701 and 10710. In 1989 it was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
, along with many other historic post offices in the state. Secretary of the Treasury
William Gibbs McAdoo William Gibbs McAdoo Jr.McAdoo is variously differentiated from family members of the same name: * Dr. William Gibbs McAdoo (1820–1894) – sometimes called "I" or "Senior" * William Gibbs McAdoo (1863–1941) – sometimes called "II" or "Ju ...
personally chose the site. The building is one of many of those designed by the Treasury Department's
Office of the Supervising Architect The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939. The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of the nineteenth ...
under
James A. Wetmore James Alfonso Wetmore (November 1863 – March 14, 1940) was an American lawyer and administrator, best known as the Acting Supervising Architect of the U.S. Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department from 1915 through 1933. ...
. Since it was located in a growing city, it is larger than most other post offices built around the same time. In its
Classical Revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...
design hints of the emerging
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style can be seen. It remains largely intact today.


Building

The post office building occupies the block between Main Street on the south, Buena Vista Avenue on the east, Nepperhan Street on the north and Market Place to the east. The terrain is level, reflecting the proximity of the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
to the west just beyond the railroad tracks used by
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
and
Metro-North Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public authority of the U.S. state of New York and under contract with the Connecticut D ...
's Hudson Line. The 1911 Beaux-Arts main building of the Yonkers train station is to the northwest. On the north, the square has a small park at its center, yielding to a parking lot on the northeast. The city's new library building is across the square, in buildings once used by the
Otis Elevator Company Otis Worldwide Corporation (trade name, branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farming ...
. To the east, the two blocks between Market and Riverdale Avenue (
U.S. Route 9 U.S. Route 9 (US 9) is a north–south United States highway in the states of Delaware, New Jersey, and New York in the Northeastern United States. It is one of only two U.S. Highways with a ferry connection (the Cape May–Lewes Ferry, between ...
and
New York State Route 9A New York State Route 9A (NY 9A) is a state highway in the vicinity of New York City in the United States. Its southern terminus is at Battery Place near the northern end of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel in New York City, where it inters ...
) have dense urban development consisting of multistory commercial buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site, a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
, is a block to their north. South and southeast are larger, more modern office buildings. The
Yonkers Trolley Barn The former Yonkers Trolley Barn is located on Main Street in Yonkers, New York, United States. It is a massive steel frame brick building in the Renaissance Revival style built at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2002 it was listed on the Nati ...
, also on the National Register and now remodeled into apartments, is on the southwest.


Exterior

There is a flagpole on the southwest corner of the block. Narrow hedges on all but the east side set off the building. The building itself is a two-story steel frame structure faced on all sides by smooth buff
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
topped by a flat roof. Those facades form a roughly square building with the exception of the irregular east. They are 15
bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...
wide on the south (Main Street) side, 13 on Market Street, 11 on Nepperhan and nine on Buena Vista. Atop is a flat roof. With the exception of the east, which serves as a
loading dock A loading dock or loading bay is an area of a building where goods vehicles (usually road or rail) are loaded and unloaded. They are commonly found on commercial and industrial buildings, and warehouses in particular. Loading docks may be exterio ...
, all facades have a similar
decorative Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
treatment: flat engaged Corinthian
pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
s dividing all bays save those on the corners, which are set off on the non-corner side by paired pilasters. All support an
entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...
with a frieze decorated with curved rosettes. At the roofline is a denticulated
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
with a
balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...
d
parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
. On the first story, windows are four-over-four double-hung sash with a four-light
transom Transom may refer to: * Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar * Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet * Operation Tran ...
. The second story has similar windows but without the transoms. The west and south facades have centrally located entrances, with steps on the former due to the slight grade. They take up three bays each, with original bronze lampposts on either side. Each bay has a bronze double door flanked by engaged fluted pilasters and topped with a ten-light transom. Above it is a lintel with geometric designs and a foliate
relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and ...
. In the first bay of the north facade and the second-to-last bay of the east facade is an additional single-bay entrance with similar treatment; the former is no longer in use. A large covered loading platform runs the full width of the first story of the Market Street facade on the east. The central three bays have garage doors built into the wall to allow trucks to unload directly to the indoors; the outer three on both sides have platforms. Above them is a second story with the same window treatment as found elsewhere on the building.


Interior

Both entrances lead through bronze vestibules to an L-shaped lobby with its original
terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...
floors and buff marble wainscoting. Flat marble Corinthian pilasters, also buff, rise on both the inside and outside walls to the coffered plaster ceiling divided by beams at each bay. Low-relief decoration is on almost every surface. On the outside wall are oak bulletin boards framed by marble. The oak customer tables are original. An open L-shaped staircase with marble steps and a brass banister leads up to the second floor. On the interior wall, lockboxes and teller windows delineate the work areas of the post office. Behind them is the workroom. Upstairs are offices and the swing room, with the basement given over to mechanical rooms and storage.


History


Context

Yonkers began receiving mail regularly when the Albany Post Road was completed shortly after the
Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
. At that time it was delivered to Philipse Manor, a short distance from the location of the present building. In 1788 mail began being delivered to Old Hunt's Tavern nearby; it was replaced nine years later, in 1797, by the first official post office in the country store of Yonkers' first
postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...
, Alpheus Pierson, on the block where the current building is. In 1863 free delivery began. In the late 19th century Yonkers began growing rapidly. At first it was due to
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
, spurred by the completion of the
Hudson River Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...
in 1849. Many were textile mills, but there were others, such as the
Otis Elevator Company Otis Worldwide Corporation (trade name, branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farming ...
, which had set up shop in the city in 1854. Yonkers became a
city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
in 1872. The postmaster's job soon became politicized, a
patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
position awarded to those who had kept
Westchester County Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population o ...
's political leaders in power. This was true in many of the communities but even more so in Yonkers due to the volume of mail. Politicians would hold their informal meetings there, in the postmaster's office out of public view, and call other postmasters there if they failed in their political duties. This practice led to the appointment of postmasters who were incompetent at or cared little about the operations of their office and the delivery of mail. In 1905 an especially incompetent postmaster and his assistant were fired after much public anger over the poor quality of postal service in the city. President
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
personally appointed, on an interim basis, John Parsons, a New York City customs agent. He told the local politicians who complained that Parsons had only lived in Yonkers for three months and was not yet registered to vote there that they had no credibility with him. Parsons took his job very seriously, and within a short time vastly improved Yonkers' mail service. Roosevelt later gave him a full four-year commission. When it expired in 1909, however, Roosevelt was no longer president. Despite having made no accommodation to the politicians who had controlled his predecessors, he sought reappointment. The city's Republican chairman declined to do so, publicly recalling how he had been appointed in flagrant disregard of their input. Instead a recently defeated mayoral candidate got the job. Citizens rallied to keep Parsons, to no avail. As the century ended, Yonkers began to grow even more due to
suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
an development, as wealthy residents of New York City to the south realized they could live in larger houses in more pastoral surroundings and still take the train every day to their jobs and businesses in the city. A new post office was needed, and in 1906 Congress passed the first of several laws authorizing its construction. It was not until 1916 that the actual land could be purchased, and over the next three years the federal government spent $322,500 ($ in modern dollars) buying the land and the buildings on it, which included not only the old post office and its telegraph building but a hotel, store, junkyard and
gasometer A gas holder or gasholder, also known as a gasometer, is a large container in which natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows the quantity of stored gas, with pressu ...
. The location of the planned new post office was personally chosen by
Treasury Secretary The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...
William Gibbs McAdoo William Gibbs McAdoo Jr.McAdoo is variously differentiated from family members of the same name: * Dr. William Gibbs McAdoo (1820–1894) – sometimes called "I" or "Senior" * William Gibbs McAdoo (1863–1941) – sometimes called "II" or "Ju ...
, a onetime resident of Yonkers, on a tour of the site with Rep. Woodson R. Oglesby. McAdoo cited its proximity to both the railroad and the city's trolley lines. Actual construction had to wait until Congress reauthorized it in the Public Buildings Act of 1926. The original budget was raised to $520,000 ($ in modern dollars) and the building was completed one year later, in 1927.


Completed post office

The completed post office was larger than most others built in New York around the same time, most of which were smaller brick buildings in the Colonial Revival
architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...
. Yonkers' large and growing population necessitated a correspondingly large post office, and like other larger urban New York post offices of the time, such as those in
Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
and Wellsville, the
Classical Revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...
mode was preferred.
James A. Wetmore James Alfonso Wetmore (November 1863 – March 14, 1940) was an American lawyer and administrator, best known as the Acting Supervising Architect of the U.S. Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department from 1915 through 1933. ...
,
Supervising Architect The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939. The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of the nineteenth ...
at the Treasury Department, is credited with the design, as he is with many other federal buildings during his 18 years as Supervising Architect. He was, however, a political appointee and lawyer with no architectural training; that was generally left to
Louis A. Simon Louis Adolphe Simon (1867–1958) was an American architect. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Simon was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following a tour of Europe, he opened an architectural office in Baltimore, M ...
, the office's Superintendent of Architects, who succeeded Wetmore and served until the position was abolished in 1939. Yonkers's post office is distinguished by its massing, which creates a monumentality reinforced by the pilasters around the facade. It is offset by the restrained relief, repetition of forms and smooth flat surfaces, features typical of the Classical Revival during that period, which convey both the dignity of a government building and the economizing the government was undertaking at the time. They also anticipate the
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
stylings that would become more prominent in later post offices like the main one on
Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
, completed in 1931. There have been a few small changes to the building since 1927. Most noticeably, the loading dock area has been altered slightly. Since the building was listed, its central portion, once sided in yellow brick, now matches the limestone on the rest of the building. On the north facade, the Nepperhan Street entrance has been closed off so that an office could be built next to it. In the lobby, some of the teller windows have been altered and the original lighting replaced. Otherwise, all furniture and finishes are original.


See also

*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Yonkers, New York This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places entries in Yonkers, New York. See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Westchester County, New York for all others in the county. This is intended to be a complete lis ...


References


External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in New York Yonkers Government buildings completed in 1927 Neoclassical architecture in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Yonkers, New York National Register of Historic Places in Yonkers, New York